Each morning I find some petitions and actions about ice bears, fishes in danger, polutions, people in need and so on. think many of us get them.Some react sceptical and see this as business to disturb their mailbox.

I see it as an opportunity to look closer to underlying destructive activities which effects us all, humans in our environment. Think all is interdependent and as Buddhism is no clinging to emptiness, brought this me by responsability. Altruism.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy

The mindless ideology of left-wing Buddhists disturbs me as much as any tea-party supporter, because it is the same basic activity: a massive "call to action," without any foundation in knowledge, intelligence, or mindfulness. The OP is obviously pretty passionate about things, but the post itself isn't very coherent. This nonsense has nothing to do with Buddhism at all. If Buddhism makes you vote Democrat, good for you.

Zen master Seung Sahn:Nowadays in America, people are very rich. Outside they are rich; but inside, they are very poor. We must attain love, compassion, and bodhisattva action. "Bodhisattva" means to not hold my desires, to put down desire and help all beings. The name for that is bodhisattva action. That's very important. Look at this world: a lot of nuclear weapons. America, Russia, many other countries too. If all these weapons explode, what will happen to our world? There are too many human beings! In 1945, there were two billion people -- that's after many thousands of years! Now there are six billion people. Too many human beings have appeared!

In this world cause and effect are very clear. What was the primary cause of this? What condition led to it? What was the result? Whenever something happens, you have to look at these three things. Western people eat meat every day. In the past, Asian people only ate meat on holidays or their birthday. But nowadays, in Korea or Japan or China: three meals a day, eat meat, eat meat, eat meat! We kill many animals, then this animal consciousness becomes a human being. So many of our faces look like human beings', but inside our minds are animal. First this appeared in America and Russia, then it appeared in smaller countries. Russia controlled many countries for a long time. If you correctly control, it's not a problem. But this was not correct, so there was a revolution in Russia. http://www.kwanumzen.com/primarypoint/v ... amind.html

I appreciate his talk a lot but about the animals I am not sure. Knowing their mind maybe not, but the care of some animals toward eachother sometimes, we people can learn about.

To use our energy completely outwardly for the sake of all and all. than inside is nobody home and wealth is boundless and thinking labels Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism and...aren't.

Last edited by muni on Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

No evil is there similar to anger,No austerity to be compared with patience.Steep yourself, therefore, in patience -In all ways, urgently, with zeal.Thus with patience I will bravely persevere.Through zeal (virya) it is that I shall reach enlightenment.If no wind blows, then nothing stirs,And neither is there merit without perseverance.

Shantideva.

My mind is calm when the ocean is calm. A Bodhisattva is training on waves.

Bodhisattva's have to be cautious in how they use their energy, not wasting it like angry political activists who harbor mental afflictions, can't sleep at night, and spend their days trying to get people angry or guilty. Don't be like the free Tibet people, always trying to drag Vajrayana under the bus for their cause. Enough monasteries in Tibet have been destroyed, enough monks beaten, leave them out of it you know.. Or like in Burma, everyone wants to support monks protest, the old abbots are telling the young monks, " NO! DON'T PROTEST" but again political people with afflictions drag practitioners, monastics, under the bus for their cause, accomplishing nothing. Thousands dead.

Bodhisattvas look with a critical eye at what they do, the results. Their time is precious, they are not some casual samsaric being to be lead around by mara's hooks of anger, jealousy, ignorance, attachment and greed, doing the bidding of anyone who arouses these afflictions in their mind.

spiritnoname wrote:Bodhisattva's have to be cautious in how they use their energy, not wasting it like angry political activists who harbor mental afflictions, can't sleep at night, and spend their days trying to get people angry or guilty. Don't be like the free Tibet people, always trying to drag Vajrayana under the bus for their cause. Enough monasteries in Tibet have been destroyed, enough monks beaten, leave them out of it you know.. Or like in Burma, everyone wants to support monks protest, the old abbots are telling the young monks, " NO! DON'T PROTEST" but again political people with afflictions drag practitioners, monastics, under the bus for their cause, accomplishing nothing. Thousands dead.

Bodhisattvas look with a critical eye at what they do, the results. Their time is precious, they are not some casual samsaric being to be lead around by mara's hooks of anger, jealousy, ignorance, attachment and greed, doing the bidding of anyone who arouses these afflictions in their mind.

Protection through bodhichitta = wisdom and compassion. Watching own mind.

One of my teachers, who is western, tells us that we in the West have an amazing opportunity - to understand something that people wanting to come here don't understand. Which is that this modern capitalistic lifestyle does not work, it does not make us happy. Everyone wants it, but it ultimately lets us down. This is not a right or a left wing point of view IMHO.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways, Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears, I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat - and a Voice beat - More instant than the Feet - ‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’

muni wrote:Zen master Seung Sahn:Nowadays in America, people are very rich. Outside they are rich; but inside, they are very poor.

No, a lot of them are actually poor too.

Not poor to the same degree as in other countries, but unlike other countries, the cost of living is substantially higher, the government does not provide free healthcare, and western people have less familial ties to rely on for things like food and shelter, so it can be comparably difficult. Where I live, homeless people have been trying to sneak into the local community college at night to sleep, because it's cold at night and they apparently lack shelter, for whatever reason. If they don't have shelter, in the middle of the winter, they will die of exposure; it happens every year. Whereas the "Free Tibet" crowd could be spending their money on sleeping bags for the homeless and making soup, they spend their money on stupid ****ing statues and prayer flags, and others like them stand on the street corner handing out pamphlets on vegetarianism while people elsewhere starve to death.

Let's go into this B.S. by this worthless teacher even further:

Now there are six billion people. Too many human beings have appeared!

This Malthusian sentiment is nonsense that is outdated by centuries. Technically there is no such thing as "too much population," because population growth triggers economic and technological growth that may or may not outpace the population growth; ideally, there's a balance. If there's sufficient economic and technological growth, there is no resource cap because new resources are created (did we use uranium 500 years ago? NO) and existing resources are exploited in more efficient ways.

In this world cause and effect are very clear. What was the primary cause of this? What condition led to it? What was the result? Whenever something happens, you have to look at these three things. Western people eat meat every day. In the past, Asian people only ate meat on holidays or their birthday. But nowadays, in Korea or Japan or China: three meals a day, eat meat, eat meat, eat meat! We kill many animals, then this animal consciousness becomes a human being. So many of our faces look like human beings', but inside our minds are animal. First this appeared in America and Russia, then it appeared in smaller countries. Russia controlled many countries for a long time. If you correctly control, it's not a problem. But this was not correct, so there was a revolution in Russia.

So, eating meat is what causes nations to prosper and decline? Absurdly paranoid. This guy clearly needs to lose the robe because he's already lost his mind, so may as well lose the robe with it.

So, yeah, in conclusion that quote seems rather stupid and irrelevant. However I will say perhaps you might be able to quote Seung Sahn relevantly in this thread.

You're using a political term, not an economic one. It's best to know the terms and ideas involved here.

And there is no such thing as "crony capitalism" in the study of economics because it's a value-laden term, from a certain point-of-view.

I get what you're saying, though. So to be more clear: Capitalism and Socialism are both theoretical extremes of either private or public ownership over the means of production which are virtually never fully realized in practice, so all economies are in reality mixed-markets and the question is different. For the average, uneducated person it's about "Capitalism vs. Socialism". You hear this B.S. on TV all the time. But in reality, that is an oversimplification of how economies work. Markets fail but governments do too, for various reasons. If you treat either markets or governments as being like universal solutions to any economic or social problem, you are in reality no different than somebody who believes in trying to cure cancer or AIDS through faith-healing or voodoo.

The mindless ideology of left-wing Buddhists disturbs me as much as any tea-party supporter, because it is the same basic activity: a massive "call to action," without any foundation in knowledge, intelligence, or mindfulness. The OP is obviously pretty passionate about things, but the post itself isn't very coherent. This nonsense has nothing to do with Buddhism at all. If Buddhism makes you vote Democrat, good for you.

Sometimes this has some validity but generally there is so much to fix in the world that actually what we have is a lack of actually necessary action ....

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

Individual wrote:Let's go into this B.S. by this worthless teacher even further:

Zen Master Seung Sahn was not a worthless teacher by any means.

Individual wrote:

muni wrote:Zen master Seung Sahn:Nowadays in America, people are very rich. Outside they are rich; but inside, they are very poor.

No, a lot of them are actually poor too.

Not poor to the same degree as in other countries, but unlike other countries, the cost of living is substantially higher, the government does not provide free healthcare, and western people have less familial ties to rely on for things like food and shelter, so it can be comparably difficult.

This is something that many immigrants do not understand. Zen Master Seung Sahn was a Korean who came to the US in 1972. South Korea was well recovered from the Korean War but may just have been beginning it's massive economic expansion.

Another issue (and one coming up strongly in this current Depression) is that Americans are nearly universally deeply in debt and do not have sufficient cash reserves on hand to cover emergencies (for example for years we were told to have a minimum of six months cash reserves on hand but relatively few people did this but in actuality we need a minimum of 2 years of cash reserves on hand and no debt whatsoever).

Where I live, homeless people have been trying to sneak into the local community college at night to sleep, because it's cold at night and they apparently lack shelter, for whatever reason. If they don't have shelter, in the middle of the winter, they will die of exposure; it happens every year.

This is reflective of the total failure of US society with respect to caring for others.

Whereas the "Free Tibet" crowd could be spending their money on sleeping bags for the homeless and making soup, they spend their money on stupid ****ing statues and prayer flags, and others like them stand on the street corner handing out pamphlets on vegetarianism while people elsewhere starve to death.

The facts are more that homelessness is a significant social structural problem and actually addressing it is very difficult (and I may become homeless myself in the next few months). People do not have the tools to address these kinds of problems in part because most people are actually poor themselves (they have just sufficient resources to cover their own immediate needs).

Now there are six billion people. Too many human beings have appeared!

This Malthusian sentiment is nonsense that is outdated by centuries.

It was a common sentiment amongst Seung Sahn's middle-class, college educated students many of whom were concerned about population explosion as a detrimental development for our world. They were in fact partly right.

Technically there is no such thing as "too much population," because population growth triggers economic and technological growth that may or may not outpace the population growth; ideally, there's a balance. If there's sufficient economic and technological growth, there is no resource cap because new resources are created (did we use uranium 500 years ago? NO) and existing resources are exploited in more efficient ways.

Well ideally but we have just seen a world-wide failure of capitalism that would argue otherwise. Overtime people can create new resources but in fact actual earth resources (industrial metals, wood, water, oil, gas, coal, etc) are seen are relatively fixed which while not being completely true is true enough.

In this world cause and effect are very clear. What was the primary cause of this? What condition led to it? What was the result? Whenever something happens, you have to look at these three things. Western people eat meat every day. In the past, Asian people only ate meat on holidays or their birthday. But nowadays, in Korea or Japan or China: three meals a day, eat meat, eat meat, eat meat! We kill many animals, then this animal consciousness becomes a human being. So many of our faces look like human beings', but inside our minds are animal. First this appeared in America and Russia, then it appeared in smaller countries. Russia controlled many countries for a long time. If you correctly control, it's not a problem. But this was not correct, so there was a revolution in Russia.

So, eating meat is what causes nations to prosper and decline? Absurdly paranoid. This guy clearly needs to lose the robe because he's already lost his mind, ...

I think you are being excessively harsh here. This is not meant to literally equate meat eating with degeneration but this is only a symptom of the increase in hostile, non-compassionate ways of interacting with others. So with an increase in meat eating there was an increase in non-compassionate behavior where people do not care for others. One of the guiding teachings of the Kwan Um School is something that can be described as correct usage (and IMO this leads to a kind of rigidity but they have a point too). So mindless non-compassionate consumption of any kind would fall into this kind of incorrect usage (I forget their actual term but it can be found in some of the published teachings). Seung Sahn's overall point is more likely to be that rampant killing overall has led to a degeneration in how people treat each other.

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

spiritnoname wrote: Bodhisattvas look with a critical eye at what they do, the results. Their time is precious, they are not some casual samsaric being to be lead around by mara's hooks of anger, jealousy, ignorance, attachment and greed, doing the bidding of anyone who arouses these afflictions in their mind.

This brings to mind a certain young man who spoke elsewhere of keeping a running tab of the Buddhism-related searches on Google year after year and contemplating what the data meant about others' seriousness about Dharma.

Just a playful jab, though. Rest assured you could make similar comments to me if I were to reveal all my time-wasting techniques.

It is clear to me there are many people who wish to maintain what they perceive as a status quo of Western lifestyle with ever expanding markets and production. This wish is based on ignorance.As a Buddhist is it not the goal to cut away this ignorance?